Paid vacation, $100 in hand and other Biden offers. Why did the US decide to "accelerate" the pace of vaccination

What new requirements have been introduced in the usa

US President Joe Biden has ordered federal and state leaders to take additional steps to accelerate the pace of vaccination. “The unvaccinated spread the virus: they get sick and put a strain on our hospitals. This means that if someone needs help in connection with a broken hip or a heart attack, then there may not be beds for them,” the HEAD of state said on July 29. He urged Americans to get vaccinated against COVID-19 “for themselves, for your loved ones, for your country” and listed measures to make getting vaccinated easier and more motivated to get vaccinated.

First, Biden ordered that every worker be able to get paid leave to get vaccinated. According to the president, the state will reimburse the expenses of small and medium-sized businesses spent on vacations.

Second, Biden called on states to pay $100 to everyone who received a full COVID-19 vaccination. According to him, a similar scheme was tested by retailer Kroger's, which allowed the company to increase the share of vaccinated employees from 50% to 75%. “I know that vaccination incentive payments may seem unfair to those who have already been vaccinated, but if creating new incentives [for vaccination] helps beat the virus, then I think we should use it,” he explained.

In favor of material rewards for vaccination, in particular, spoke out a former economic adviser in the administration of George W. Bush, a professor at Harvard University, Gregory Mankiw. Vaccination is the only way to vaccinate the vast majority of Americans and overcome the economic problems associated with business closures during the COVID-19 pandemic, ordinary citizens are responding to incentive measures, he said. According to Mankiw, ignoring the problem of the unvaccinated - and putting up with their unwillingness to get vaccinated - would be wrong, since such people are a danger to others and thus create a "negative externality". “As all students of economics know, when any action of the subject has a side effect on others, then this effect is considered to be external, and in such cases the doctrine of the free market does not apply,” he wrote, comparing the unvaccinated with companies that pollute the atmosphere. Mankiw supported the idea of ​​another economist, Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Robert Litan, to pay Americans $1,000 for vaccinations. As Mankiw noted, such measures would cost the US budget $300 billion. Nevertheless, he considered such costs justified in order to quickly overcome the economic crisis.